An interactive multimedia system comprises a combination of hardware and software in a manner that enables interactive multimedia experiences. Minimal elements of an integrated interactive multimedia system are a display capable of showing multimedia assets (such as video, animation, images and sound), one or more input devices that allow interaction between users and the interactive multimedia system, and an Application Programmer's Interface (API) that allows interactive multimedia designers to design interactive experiences, such as games, business presentations, educational presentations, etc. Some interactive multimedia systems also include one or more additional elements for supporting the capability of installation-to-installation communication (e.g., between two or more auditoriums), thereby allowing distributed multimedia experience participation (e.g., distributed gaming). Furthermore, some interactive multimedia systems have the ability to enhance point-of-sale (POS) operations by facilitating product orders.
Three examples of interactive multimedia systems are personal computer systems, personal gaming consoles and audience response systems. Personal computer systems typically have a single display designed for one viewer and support only the interactive input of a single user. Several multimedia APIs exist for personal computer systems. Personal gaming consoles such as Microsoft Corporation's Xbox® and Sony Computer Entertainment's Playstation® typically have a single television-sized display, support simultaneous interactive inputs from up to four users, and support a single proprietary multimedia API. Audience response systems have large, often projected displays, support the interactive input of multiple users. These systems consist of installation of a hardware solution such as Fleetwood Incorporated's Reply® system in combination with certain software packages (e.g., Advanced Software Products' Digital Professor™ application) that are designed to allow rudimentary presentations or application programs such as Buzztime Entertainment Incorporated's Buzztime™ application. Because no multimedia API existed for these applications at the time of their development, the designers of these applications have had to work directly with the underlying input device APIs in order to create multimedia applications for group environments.
Designers who create multimedia experiences for a personal computer system or for a personal gaming console do so using various multimedia system APIs and tools that have become very refined, powerful and widely used, but all were designed to accept interactive responses from one or, at most, a few simultaneous users. In contrast, APIs and tools for shared-experience multimedia, such as audience response systems, must specifically address simultaneous interaction from a large group of participants at a single location (e.g., an auditorium). Because the use of shared-experience interactivity has been limited to relatively large-budget productions or single-purpose installations, there has been limited awareness of the need for a flexible multimedia API for shared-experience interactivity. As a result, a technology gap exists between the magnitude of powerful, easy-to-use, common standards and tools designed for individual-experience multimedia and the expensive, complicated and often poor quality tools and technologies available for shared-experience multimedia.
An experience designer could use existing, well-supported individual-experience multimedia tools (e.g., Macromedia's Flash technology) to design a multimedia presentation and show it on a movie screen before a large audience. However, no mechanism exists for allowing an audience to participate in the presentation interactively. Even if members of the audience were equipped with some means of interacting with the presentation (such as wireless handheld devices), significant limitations exist with respect to showing the immediate results of that interaction on the screen.
Various configurations of personal computer systems, personal gaming consoles and audience response systems are embodiments of conventional interactive multimedia systems. It is known that conventional interactive multimedia systems exhibit one or more limitations with respect to their capability and/or functionality. Examples of such limitations include the limited number of users able to participate in multimedia experiences, the speed with which a large number of audience inputs can be integrated with on-screen multimedia, the difficulty of developing the multimedia experience, the difficulty associated with using existing, well-supported and well-understood design tools, the limited ability to integrate multimedia assets created for other environments, the level of distributed multimedia experience participation offered and the level of POS functionality offered.
Therefore, methods and equipment adapted for facilitating interactive multimedia functionality in a manner that overcomes limitations associated with conventional approaches for facilitating interactive multimedia functionality would be novel and useful.